Ted Rall for October 25, 2008

5th Pane says it all. The rest is fluff.

Plumbing the depths of cupidity. McCain invests campaign in laughing stock.

The myth that everyone has an equal chance to become rich. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “People become rich either due to inheritance or becomes they stole the money.” Bankers and Wall Street are good examples.

There’s a group called the Young Presidents Organization. They are composed entirely of people who became president or CEO of a business prior to age 40. (They’re only members until age 40 - then they have to go to an auxiliary. Perhaps the OPO.) They’re honest about it – they refer to one major subcategory of their membership as the “lucky sperm.”

I would not be against “spreading the wealth” if we “spread” around “working hard” or “graduating school” or “not having kids unless you can afford them”.

unintent - I agree, and so why did W. get elected President? He failed multiple times in his previous career, and only made it through graduate school through – hard work? No, he never worked hard. Through his wealth and connections. Why should a hardworking person have to struggle when Dubya sails through? And notice he made sure to try and eliminate estate taxes, to make sure he kept as much of Daddy’s money as possible.

Hmmm, did W ever fail at other jobs? I do not know of any. He did graduate Harvard with higher grades than Kerry. Has any president ever said being President was easy? Show me any two people, one who needs help from the other (you know one who needs help and one who is well off). I can not think of, nor do I know of any, where the one who needed help did not apply themselves in school or in work or in life as hard or as well as the one who is well off did. There are exceptions but I would surprised if statistically it shows that the harder working people are less well off than non hard working people.

Unintent: I agree with you about the not having kids if you cannot afford it. In fact, there are just way too many people having too many kids.Sarah Palin with her multiplying offspring seems to think it is a virtue.

Should I or “Joe the Plumber” have to pay a higher tax rate than someone like Paris Hilton - which is the Bush/McCain way.

unintent–not sure where you’re going with your last statement – being conscientiously hard-working is actually one of the few personality traits that correlates with performance in the real world. As for failed companies:, He started a number of independent oil exploration companies which were basically extensions of the Bush empire. His best-known one, Arbusto merged with another company (he was chairman), and it failed, and so was merged with Harken.

Hard work is not an indicator of success in this country. If that was true our recent immigrant population would be wildly successful. If Joe thinks plumbing for 12 hours is hard try picking lettuce or strawberries in the hot sun for 12 hours and then get back to me. How many Americans can do such back breaking work everyday? McCain is just trying to let Cyndi keep her millions. Wonder how hard she worked for her $100,000,000.